


The Bicycle incident

by Sherb42



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies), Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Gen, Humans are mean, Inspired by Real Events, Prank Wars, so it's sort of like RPF? I guess?????, the whole ship is a human-infested mess, there isn't really anybody IN the fic per say - but I've tagged them if they've been mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-28
Updated: 2019-07-28
Packaged: 2020-07-23 11:21:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20007463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sherb42/pseuds/Sherb42
Summary: The first time that Spock ever owned a bike was back when he was a child, the second time was during his time at Starfleet Academy, and the third time was during his placement on the Enterprise where it seemed to gain a mind of its own, haunting the ship and her crew with its existence.Based very loosely on the real accounts from Lenord Nimoy and Willam Shatner of the later repetitively taking and hiding the former's bike while on set.





	The Bicycle incident

**Author's Note:**

> Here's some context if you don't know what I'm talking about:
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbHP5FbJNAw 
> 
> (please watch it, it's adorable.)

The first time that Spock ever owned a bike was back when he was a child. His mother had suggested to his father that it would be a good way to ‘bond in a human way.’ The day very quickly ended up disaster, but she still applauded the two of them for trying. 

The second time was during his time at Starfleet academy. The study times were long, and the lines to get food even longer. With so many hungry people and only so long that they had to eat, it was a scramble to be the first to either arrive at a replocator, or if you’re lucky, get real food. What’s the solution for such a problem? Be fast. 

Of course, one might try to run, but many humanoid species are good at running. The second would be to get wheels. The wheels that Spock had settled on what was a dark grey bicycle. It wasn’t that he was all that fond of the thing, but he had to admit that it did help. If you were to ask Spock about this bike, the chances you’d get a response are unlikely. 

The main thing to keep in mind for this story was this: Spock kept the bike. He not only kept it, but he kept on using it, even on spaceships. It seemed like a logical asset to have, and you couldn’t exactly argue with the second in command about whether or not he’s allowed to ride his bike up or down the halls. 

This is how it first happened: the bike disappeared from its usual spot. Of course, it was found quickly, it had just been put in a storage area by somebody who had been cleaning. No biggie. 

The second time that it happened was when the bike ended up chained to a bulkhead with a replicated padlock. Nobody owned up to it. Again, no biggie. One could just assume that it was tied up so nobody would take it. Of course the code wasn’t given to Spock to be able to unlock it, so he had to use bolt cutters to get it free. 

And so began the saga of Spock’s bike having a mind of its own, haunting the Enterprise with its existence. 

For a little more context for any of my inter-planetary readers: There is a human game called ‘hide and seek’ that has many variants in how it’s played. For example: with what objects can be used. A version of this game was also adapted into an old children’s custom named ‘Elf on the Shelf’ that was introduced to get human young used to the idea of mass surveillance. This version of the game used a doll as the object that was being hidden around the household. The version of ‘hide and seek’ that spawned from Spock’s bike was a simple one: once you found it, you had to hide it yourself. Humans like this sort of game, and with a crew that was mostly human, it wasn’t a big surprise that it escalated. The escalation of the situation was slow, but boy did it escalate.

Over time a few more ground rules got created. 

1: the bike must stay in one piece – no defacing or deconstruction. 

2: Do not hide it in your own quarters. That’s cheating. 

3: do not hide the bike in sickbay. If it does end up there you will have to ask the Captain to convince the CMO to give the bike back. The CMO won’t and will never play. 

Interestingly, there is no official report made anywhere about, or that mentions this bike. The best thing that you might find (aside from just asking somebody, but that ruins the fun) would include automatic inventory scans or weight records from turbolift trips when it was being taken deck to deck. Even if there is no official paperwork with the bike being mentioned, there was one letter sent by Commander Spock back home from around the height of the game. 

That letter simply read as the following: 

_Mother. Humans are mean._

_The Captain is mean. I am not kidding – he is a very mean person. He stole my bicycle and he hurts me, badly. I want you to know that. He takes advantage of me, and he gets his whole crew to bully me further. I have my bicycle on the ship and I even have my name on it and everything. They all know that it’s mine but crew still take it anyway. I turn around for .2 of a second and it’s gone. Yesterday it was welded to the outside of my quarter’s window. There has never been on a spacewalk anywhere near my window and it has been three months since we’ve last docked anywhere._

_I miss Admiral Pike. He did not, and would not, condone this._

This sort of letter was not uncommon for Spock to send back home, but usually, it wasn’t this long. 

You are now probably wondering what types of things happened to this bike, and so I will now dedicate a small portion of this storytelling you some of the best hiding places used in the short time that it was being hidden. 

Inside of a transport pattern buffer, part of a holographic bike shop in a recroom recreation of a small country town, very neatly tucked into Sulu’s bed (with a bathrobe on and all – Sulu didn’t even own a bathrobe at the time,) inside of the kitchen’s freezer, if you name it, it got done. At one point the captain eventually joined in himself, and the bike ended up in the cargo bay’s ceiling bulkheads. This was where Kirk hid it every time he ended up with it and it got really old really fast - for everybody but him. 

One notable hiding spot for the bike was found to be created by Ensign Chekov by using the ship’s tractor beam. During the six weeks (one of the best runs that it had time-wise, mind you) that he was able to hide it by using the distorted frequency of said beam to toe the bike behind the ship. The distortion was enough the ship to not register that it was in use, or for regular sensors to be able to detect anything, either. The only reason that it was discovered was when the tractor beam was actually needed for something and they had to put a whole rescue operation on hold for over an hour as they had to reconfigure the locked beam to be able to use it again.

Ensign Chekov is no longer allowed to participate. This is a fact that he still, to this day, is bitter about. 

One of the things that was consistent with regards to this bike was that most of the time nobody knew where it was. Partly because that was the whole point, but partly because nobody wanted to go back and check if it was where it was last hidden. There was always at least a handful of people at any given point that claims that it’s still in their spots. 

Interestingly, one of the few people that spent time on the ship that never got fully informed about it all was Spock’s father, Sarek, who in turn spent almost a week solid researching the cultural significants of bicycles to humans. It did not explain why there was a bike duct-taped to the ceiling of his quarters during the duration of his stay, but as a Vulcan he had to accept that sometimes things did not have a clear explanation – especially when aliens are involved. 

It did not keep him up and unable to either sleep or meditate for that week, on no. that would be illogical. His wife, Amanda, knew, she was the one who recommended their quarters as a good hiding spot when she bumped into an ensign carrying the bike out of a Jeffries’s tube. 

The reason they had to stop playing went a little something like this:

But, to make the very long (and frankly sort of embarrassing) story short: there was a misunderstanding during a first contact situation and an alien race assumed that the bike was an object of worship. 

Alright, you might say, it could be worse. 

Instead, perhaps, it wasn’t even a real first contact situation. The planet was highly primitive and Enterprise personnel were only there to deliver supplies to a research team that was hidden on the planet. That was it! A quick in and out! If I told you that there was almost a holy war based on the bicycle not long after I would not be lying. It might sound like I might be, but I’m sadly not. 

Nobody is willing to risk their career strong enough to give any information as to how this avalanche of a messy situation began – so no change there. What we do know is that some genius had hidden the bike inside of the cargo that was meant to be transported down, and the transport mission was intercepted by alien scavenges who had been growing increasingly prominent around the observation area. 

Now, food was something that was usually ‘given from the gods through the light itself,’ as well as other tools that could be made into weapons. It was the bike that caught their (many) eyes. They had never seen anything like it, and it quickly became a cultural transfixion. Was it a gift? What was its purpose? It didn’t matter, it was theirs now. 

O’Dollan and Santiago were no match for the scavengers’ ambush, and where the ones who had to call down reinforcements to try and get the supplies back. By the time this new team (along with with some of the higher officers and the captain) two different groups of the locals had begun to fight over it. 

There was the beginnings of bloodshed, a trade agreement that got thrown out, another fight, a proposal ‘from the gods’ for the equipment back (and bike, they didn’t know the bike was part of the stolen goods until this point) in exchange for other items, more fighting, a little more bloodshed, Kirk losing his shirt, the usual stuff. All that matters now is that there is an N-class planet that nobody is allowed to go near until the whole situation diffuses into folk lore, and that may take some time. 

After that incident, the Bike - or what was left of it - was given back to Commander Spock and never seen by anybody ever again.

If you are going to ask me where the bike is now: I cannot tell you. I honestly wish that I could, but I sadly can’t. Legend says that it’s either on the Enterprise-F as part of a new recruit tradition or was thrown into a sun years ago to be rid of it for once and all. Both possibilities have equal merit. It is most likely that over time the original bike long broke down from simple age and use, but people like to think that it’s legacy is enough to keep it around, whether it’s the same sculpted piece of metal and rubber or not.


End file.
